


In Pursuit of a Gift

by TheStrange_One



Series: 12 Days of Christmas 2020 [10]
Category: Deadpool - All Media Types, Spider-Man - All Media Types
Genre: M/M, Miscommunication
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-12-23
Updated: 2020-12-23
Packaged: 2021-03-10 17:35:16
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,424
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28250982
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/TheStrange_One/pseuds/TheStrange_One
Summary: Peter has an idea of the perfect gift to get for Wade for Christmas. But to get it, he has to jump through a few hoops...
Relationships: Peter Parker/Wade Wilson
Series: 12 Days of Christmas 2020 [10]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/2054064
Comments: 12
Kudos: 100





	In Pursuit of a Gift

**Author's Note:**

  * For [YaB0i](https://archiveofourown.org/users/YaB0i/gifts).



Peter looked at the small, elite shops inside the building. At one time, this had been an apartment building, but it had been renovated so that the individual apartments were now tiny stores. Each door was marked, not with a number, but with a symbol. One door Peter passed that made him pause was one with a clockwork gear on it.

No. This trip wasn’t about _Peter_. He could come back later, maybe, if he wanted.

He took a deep breath and made his way farther into the building. What was it Natasha had said to look for? Oh, right, the purple cloud. He still remembered his conversation with her a few nights ago.

_The firefighter bots that Tony had designed flew around the battlefield dousing the fires that almost always sprang up when the Avengers (plus Peter) mobilized. Peter found himself next to Natasha as she looked around and decided, since the battle was over, to ask her a question. “So,” said Peter as he looked at the woman, “Hawkeye tells me that you know everything there is to know about the city.”_

“ _Perhaps,” said Natasha as she eyed him. “Why do you ask?”_

“ _I want to get my boyfriend a Christmas present, but I’m having trouble finding one. Do you know where I can get something made? Preferably as cheap as possible?”_

 _She stared at him for a moment, an unreadable expression on her face. “Are you,” she asked slowly, “asking_ me _for shopping advice?”_

“ _Yup.” Peter waited. She’d either give him advice, or tell him to buzz off. Honestly, if she told him to buzz off, Peter would be no worse off than before._

“ _Why not ask Stark? He’s the expert in shopping.”_

_Peter snorted. “He’s the expert in shopping when the total price is, ‘Who cares; I’m rich’,” he explained. “My budget is a bit tighter.”_

_Natasha nodded and rattled off an address. “Look for the door with the purple cloud. At first glance they look like the kind of place Stark frequents, but they work with payment options.”_

There it was! The purple cloud. Peter stared at it. It looked like it was made of painted foil, with silver accents. He wasn’t sure. It didn’t matter. He knocked.

The door opened and a woman in a tank top with short hair, black eye shadow and red lip liner stood there, blocking it. “Yeah?” she asked, sounding bored.

Peter was suddenly filled with doubt. Was he in the right place? “Natasha sent me?” he said hopefully.

She sighed and opened the door wider. “Come in,” she said grudgingly. Peter followed her inside and she closed the door behind him. The place was stuffed. There were complicated dioramas in fish tanks along one wall. There were simpler dioramas in small, plastic bug tanks on a table.

The store was filled with insanely creative stuff, but none of it was the type of creative stuff Peter was looking for. Perhaps he should have told Natasha more about the gift he wanted to get. After all, he knew _she_ could keep a secret.

“That’s a first.” Peter looked at the woman. “You’re staring at all these lovely dioramas and you don’t even look happy.”

“Oh,” Peter said quickly, “they’re very nice. I can’t imagine the amount of work it took to make them. It’s just—not the sort of thing I’m looking for.”

The woman leaned against a table that was already suffering under the weight of so many dioramas that it looked like it was about to collapse. “Oh?” she asked archly.

Peter began to fidget. “See, my—my partner had this stuffed animal as a child. He still talks about it from time to time, so I was hoping…” Peter’s voice trailed off.

“That you could get him another one?” asked the woman thoughtfully. Peter nodded. “Interesting. Of course, you’d have to have an idea of what it looked like,” she added.

“I’ve been taking notes every time he describes it,” Peter said excitedly. He pulled out the paper he’d been writing everything down on and handed it to her.

She took it and began to read it. As she went further down the list she looked at Peter. “You realize,” she said, “that it probably wasn’t like this?”

“Yeah, I think it kind of grew in his mind,” Peter acknowledged.

“And the size?”

“Well, it probably _was_ that big for him when he was a small kid.”

“Hmm.” The woman looked at the list for a bit longer.

A door from further in the shop slammed open and another woman, shorter, plumper, and with wild long hair that was frizzing so badly it nearly formed a halo around her head stood there panting. Her cheeks bloomed with red and the new woman looked—furious. “That _bastard_ ,” she hissed, “intercepted Alice!”

“Did he?” asked the first woman. Her voice was so unconcerned that Peter wondered if “Alice” was a person.

“Hijacked the damned mail truck,” the second woman continued, “and stole the damn thing! Now the customer wants _another_ one!”

“He _did_ pay almost a million for it,” said the first woman. The second one made an odd sound that was halfway between a scoff and growl. Her eyes locked on Peter. “Hands off,” the first woman said grimly. “He’s _my_ customer; not yours.”

The second woman didn’t appear to hear him as she approached him and then circled him. “Ah, my name’s Peter,” said Peter as he tried to be polite. He started to circle with her and she put a hand on his shoulder to stop him. “Um, hello?” he tried again. She circled him once more. She looked at him from the front. She looked at him from each side. And then she pulled him forward and looked at his head. “Um—”

“Louisa, _what_ are you doing?” demanded the first woman.

“Look!” Louisa suddenly pulled Peter flush against her side and gestured.

The first woman looked shocked. “Well, I’ll be damned.”

Louisa gently pushed Peter away and spoke quickly. “Are you allergic to any fabrics? Do you care if you wear a wig? Do you have an moral objections to cross dressing? How much can you lift? Is your boyfriend the jealous type?”

“Whoa, breathe,” said the first woman. She looked amused. “Allow me to do introductions and a translation. This is Louisa Alcott, finest diorama expert I’ve ever met. One of the reasons is because she uses models. She sets up a live photo shoot of the scene she wants to create, or scenes in this case, and creates the dioramas from those photos. Due to an—unfortunate set of circumstances, we lost our pictures from our last model.”

“Damned bastard,” muttered Louisa. She glared at Peter. “Well?” she demanded as she propped her hands on her hips. “Is your boyfriend the jealous type? Because I’ll have you know I’m not going through this again!”

The first woman sighed. “Louisa, you don’t even know _if_ he has a boyfriend.”

“I do. Um. Have a boyfriend, I mean. We were friends for a long time, but this is our first Christmas as an official couple, you know, and I just wanted to get something—special.” Peter trailed off and flushed under the looks that the two women were giving him.

Louisa turned to the first woman. “Never doubt me,” she ordered. She looked back at Peter. “And? Is your boyfriend the jealous type?”

“I don’t think so,” Peter said. “I mean, it’s never come up before.” He shrugged.

Louisa looked satisfied. “Good. I can work with that.”

“Tell you what,” the first woman said. She waved the list that she was still holding. “You agree to be Louisa’s model for however long it takes, and I’ll make this thing for free for you.”

How could Peter say no to that?

Wade set his glass bottle of beer down with a thunk on the bar. His head followed shortly after. Weasel, bastard that he was, didn’t even pause before he said, “Don’t act like you’re drunk. You and I both know that’s not possible.” Wade just groaned. “What’s the matter? Trouble in paradise?”

“I think Peter’s cheating on me.”

Weasel just nodded. “Well, at least it took six months,” he said philosophically.

Wade thumped his head again with a groan. “Aren’t you supposed to support me?” he asked bitterly. “Be all, ‘No, he’d never cheat on you! What are you even thinking?’ You know, like a good bartender?”

Weasel snorted. “Dude. You look like Freddy Kruger's ass, have a job that makes your ‘baby boy’ queasy, and are consistently blown up when the two of you are talking. What did you _think_ was going to happen?”

Wade sighed. He knew that. He knew all of it. And it wasn’t like he’d _stopped_ taking jobs (although he’d gotten a hell of a lot pickier about his targets). And it wasn’t like he didn’t know how Peter felt about Wade killing people. He was just—more vocal about it.

Weasel sighed. “All right,” he said. “What makes you think he’s cheating? Maybe you misunderstood something.”

“He’s been acting furtive, taking odd phone calls, and keeps staring into space and blushing.”

“That—sounds bad,” Weasel allowed. “But he’s an Avenger, right? Maybe the Tin Man said something to him.”

“He hasn’t been going to the Tower.” Wade could _feel_ Weasel’s judgment through the silence and he shifted his head so he could see the other man. “I started following him.”

“You what?”

“At first,” Wade said morosely, “he kept dodging me. I’d run ahead to the Tower, but he never showed.”

“Not usually the best thing, following someone.”

“Then I followed him to this apartment building in Harlem.” Wade sighed. “I found a way in and—Weasel, the apartment he’s been going to has two beautiful women in it.”

“Damn.”

Wade sat up enough to take another pull of his beer. “Yeah.”

“Have you tried this novel thing called, I don’t know, _talking_ to someone?”

“I’m talking to you, aren’t I?”

“If you’re not going to take a job,” Weasel said finally, “I’d like you to get your depressed ass out of my bar.” Wade groaned. “I’m serious Dude. Take your ass home and sulk in peace.”

“You,” said Wade as he pushed himself away, “are not supportive, my friend.”

“I can live with that,” said Weasel.

Wade muttered to himself as he made his trip home. Should he go home? To the apartment that he was sharing with Peter? But Peter hadn’t actually broken up with him yet. Maybe, just maybe, they could keep the facade going until after Christmas?

When Wade reached their apartment (taking the normal stairs to prolong the inevitable), his heart dropped to see one of the women standing in front of the door, leaning on a large box. Part of his mind noted that the box was far too big to fit inside the door, but the rest of him was panicking. Had Peter decided to bring his affair home? _Was_ he breaking up with Wade?

The woman turned and saw him. “Oh, good. You must be the boyfriend. I admit, that Peter did give me a key for delivery, but,” she gestured between the box and the apartment. “My bad; I should have thought of that before I picked the box. Oh, well.”

Oh, God. Peter gave her a key. Was she moving in?

“I’m glad you’re here. I didn’t feel comfortable leaving it here in the hall. Oh, and these are from Louisa.” She held out a manila folder to Wade. “She said to thank you for not going all ego jealous and attacking us, like the last time we did this.” Wade stared at her for a moment, automatically grabbing the folder. They did this on a regular basis.

“Thanks. And, Merry Christmas.” The woman pat Wade’s shoulder as she headed towards the elevator.

Wade eyed the box and contemplated burning the thing—but no. He might accidentally set the apartment building on fire. He didn’t think Peter would be happy with him if he did that.

He steeled himself and opened the folder. Inside were pictures and Wade stared for a moment at the sight in front of him. Instead of being pictures of a torrid affair they were of Petey—in drag? Wearing a blue dress? And a wig?

Wade went through the pictures several times before he realized what he was seeing. Peter getting makeup put on. Peter posing amid blocks of Styrofoam. Peter making several expressions, ranging from blushingly cute to embarrassed, to almost terrified. The last picture wasn’t of Peter at all, but of a multi-level diorama that showed the story of Alice in Wonderland. Falling down the rabbit hole, looking almost terrified. The tea party. The rose painting. And all of it with Peter’s face.

“Wade?” Wade looked up to see Peter who was staring at the box with dismay. “What’s this?” Without speaking Wade showed Peter the pictures and the other man blushed. “Oh…” He looked between the box and the door. “Um. Merry Christmas?” he said tentatively.

“What?”

Peter rubbed the back of his neck in a gesture that Wade knew all too well. “I had it made. I guess I didn’t think it through right,” he said in an uncanny echo of what the woman had said. He looked at the box again. Then he pushed it towards Wade. “Merry Christmas.”

“For me?” asked Wade incredulously. Peter nodded excitedly, eyes shining with anticipation. It was a look that Wade didn’t see on his face often, unless he was talking about science stuff that Wade couldn't understand. Wade pulled the tape off the top of the box and opened it. And stared.

Inside was a giant stuffed unicorn. It was white, and the white fur seemed to sparkle. The mane and tail had been done in six colors; red, orange, yellow, green, blue, and purple. It was big enough that he could snuggle against it—like he remembered doing with the one he’d gotten from his mother as a kid. The one that his dad had burned when his mom died.

His throat spasmed as tears burned his eyes while he reached in and gripped it. The thing was so _soft_ , both the fur and the insides. He looked up at Peter, who was smiling. “Thank you,” he said. The words just weren’t enough to convey the emotion that Wade was feeling.

Peter hugged him and pressed a kiss to his cheek. “Merry Christmas, Wade.”


End file.
